From VP hopeful to Kamala's hype man: Shapiro flexes on Trump and Dem doubters
PHILADELPHIA ― When Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro bounded onto the stage Tuesday evening, he was energetic, charismatic and clearly at home.
It was a glimpse of what might have been. Before the harsh reality of politics set in.
Shapiro swallowed whatever disappointment he may have felt in losing out on the chance to become Vice President Kamala Harris' running mate and made himself the rousing hype man for the Democratic presidential nominee and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, whom Harris had asked just hours earlier to join her on the ticket.
“I love you, Philly – and you know what else I love? I love being your governor!” Shapiro said to deafening cheers from inside Temple University’s Liacouras Center, where Harris and Walz were making their first joint campaign appearance.
For days, it had appeared that Shapiro would end up as Harris’ vice-presidential running mate. He had interviewed for the job, and the choice came down to him and Walz. Harris’s decision to go with Walz stunned many given Shapiro’s credentials: He’s a popular governor of a battleground state that could determine the winner of the election.
But Shapiro also carried considerable baggage that would have made him a risky choice. Shapiro, who is Jewish, has infuriated the Democratic Party’s progressives as well as Arab Americans and Muslims over his support for Israel in its ongoing war in the Gaza Strip.
And while his positions aren't that different from the other names on Harris's shortlist, it was Shapiro who frequently faced the toughest scrutiny.
Shapiro, 51, has been one of the most steadfast Democratic supporters of Israel, arguing that it has a right to defend itself from Hamas. He has been critical of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, calling him "one of the worst leaders of all time.” But he has also refrained from calling for an immediate cease-fire, which put him at odds with many of the party’s left-wing voters.
How much Shapiro’s stance on Israel – and the possibility that could have splintered the party – weighed on Harris’s decision to pick Walz wasn’t immediately clear. Had Harris chosen him, Shapiro would have been the second practicing Jew to run for vice president, behind the late Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman, who ran alongside Al Gore in 2000. But voters have never elected a Jewish president or vice president in the nation's nearly 250-year history.
From the rally stage, Shapiro showed no signs of hard feelings. He heaped praise on Walz, calling him “a dear friend” and “a great patriot” and urging the crowd “to give him a whole lot of love.”
He doubled down on defending his Jewish faith ― and even appeared to be firing back at detractors who had dubbed him "Genocide Josh."
“I lean on my family, and I lean on my faith, which calls me to serve,” Shapiro said. "And I am proud of my faith."
'Family and faith ground me'
Shapiro's faith has been central to his personal life and political career from an early age, when he began a letter-writing campaign to raise awareness about Soviet Jews barred from leaving their country, to the final days of Harris's search for a running mate.
Shapiro grew up in Upper Dublin in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania.
As a child, Shapiro, with the help of his mother, Judi, started a letter-writing program to raise awareness about “refuseniks,” Soviet Jews who were refused permission to emigrate from the Soviet Union, usually to Israel, in the late 1960s through the 1970s.
“These were Soviet Jewish children and families who were refused the ability to leave the Soviet Union, to practice their faith and to live free lives,” he said during an interview with the USA Today Network when running for governor in 2021. “And my mom served on those issues, and she got me inspired to work on those issues as well,”
Shapiro’s pen-pal in that program, a boy named Avi, traveled to America to attend Shapiro’s bar mitzvah at the Beth Shalom synagogue near Upper Dublin. Avi’s family were granted asylum in Israel soon after.
Growing up, Shapiro attended the Forman Hebrew Day School and then the Akiba Hebrew Academy, now the Jack M. Barrack Hebrew Academy.
During his 2022 gubernatorial bid, Shapiro didn't shy away from his faith — and neither did his opponent, state Sen. Doug Mastriano, a self-described Christian nationalist from Franklin County.
In his first campaign TV ad, Shapiro said no matter where he starts his day, "I make it home Friday night for Sabbath dinner," which he celebrates with his wife and four children every week, "because family and faith ground me."
Mastriano, speaking to supporters, said Shapiro harbored "disdain for people like us," because he "grew up in a privileged neighborhood, attended one of the most privileged schools in the nation as a young man... sending his four kids to the same privileged, exclusive, elite school."
Shapiro, however, turned Mastriano's extremist views against him, criticizing him for his ties to other Christian nationalists, including Andrew Torba, founder of the conservative social media platform Gab.
More: Why Kamala Harris chose Tim Walz over Josh Shapiro as her running mate
Israel's war with Hamas
Since the attack on Israel by Hamas and other Palestinian militants in Gaza on Oct. 7, 2023, Shapiro has several times rankled progressives and Arab-American and Muslim populations angered over Israel's response to the war. Israeli forces have killed nearly 40,000 Palestinian civilians and combatants, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.
Shapiro has supported Israel's right to defend itself from Hamas. But he also has refrained from calling for a cease-fire, made references to the Ku Klux Klan in discussing pro-Palestinian protestors, and raised questions about his support for free-speech rights in calling for the firing for University of Pennsylvania President Elizabeth Magill over anti-Israel campus protests.
Some Shapiro defenders have said that the popular governor's position on Israel differs little from other Democratic lawmakers and that criticism of him is antisemitic.
Over the weekend, for example, he was forced to defend an essay he wrote for his college newspaper in which he suggested that Palestinians were “too battle-minded” to achieve a two-state solution in the Middle East. Shapiro said his views have evolved in the three decades since he penned the article, but critics called his remarks racist and anti-Palestinian.
Amy Spitalnick, CEO of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, said she finds the conversation about Shapiro to be "concerning" and said he has "positions on Israel that largely align with the vast majority of other potential VP candidates."
“There's a lot of important and constructive debate and criticism that should happen around his policies or anyone else's policies” when it comes to Israel or campus protests, she said. But “if it's only the Jewish candidate that is being singled out with terms like ‘Genocide Josh,’ then that is deeply problematic.”
More: New poll shows Josh Shapiro and Mark Kelly have higher favorability than Tim Walz
Other factors also may have kept Shapiro off the presidential ticket.
"There may have been an experience factor," said Robert Speel, professor of political science at Penn State's Behrend campus in Erie, Pa. "Walz not only has served as governor for six years, but he also served in Congress for many years before that. He also was an officer in the Army National Guard and served for a couple of decades. Tim Walz certainly has an impressive resume, which may have given him a boost over Shapiro."
Like Harris, Shapiro is a former state attorney general, but he has served as governor for less than two years, has no experience on the federal level and lacks military bona fides.
"There were some negative attributes to a potential Shapiro choice," Speel said. "One was his past support for school vouchers, which is not particularly popular with liberals. Second, the way he reacted last fall when there were protesters at university campuses in Philadelphia incensed over what was happening in the Middle East. There were many Democrats, particularly young Democrats, who were not happy with Shapiro kind of joining in with Republicans to attack student protestors. That may have played a role as well."
Shapiro, who many consider a moderate Democrat, would have added an ideological balance to the ticket while also helping Harris nab a critical battleground state.
Shapiro's candidacy, however, faced opposition on multiple fronts.
More: Josh Shapiro's vice presidential prospects spark debate over Israel policy, antisemitism
Sex scandal
Also, haunting Shapiro were questions about what he knew and when he knew it about sexual harassment claims involving a former cabinet member.
Last fall, Shapiro's office quietly settled for $295,000 a claim that a longtime ally had made numerous sexual advances toward a subordinate, as well as lewd comments about the subordinate, other female staffers and a female state senator, as The (Philadelphia) Inquirer has reported. The employee had only been on the job for two months when Mike Vereb, Shapiro's secretary of legislative affairs, allegedly began making the comments.
Days after the woman told Vereb that his conduct was becoming the subject of office gossip, she was called into a meeting with the human resources department for the governor's office. Vereb later mentioned to her that the meeting was about performance issues with her job.
The woman resigned in March after that meeting and a separate meeting with Shapiro staffers in which she addressed her concerns. She provided a statement to the state Office of Equal Opportunity that month, and in June filed a complaint with the state Human Relations Commission. The settlement, which included a non-disclosure agreement that prohibits all parties from commenting on the matter, was paid in September. Vereb resigned weeks later.
Shapiro has been peppered with questions about why Vereb was allowed to remain in his job for months after the allegations were lodged against him.
'It's kind of bittersweet'
At the campaign rally in Philadelphia, Marc Seide, a 34-year-old web designer from Philadelphia, said he believes Walz "balances out" the ticket and that Shapiro's opposition from progressives might have posed too many challenges.
"The is my first campaign event of the year, and I'm excited. I'm really excited to see how this goes," Seide said. "To go from (Joe) Biden to Harris and to see that energy out here in the crowd ? it's tremendous."
Robin Reid, 63, of Philadelphia, said she had been rooting for Shapiro to become Harris' running mate "because he’s from Pennsylvania, and he’s just relatable.
"I’ve never heard of Tim Walz,” Reid said.
“But at the same time," she added, "we were afraid of losing Josh Shapiro, so it’s kind of bittersweet."
Contributing: Riley Beggin
Matthew Rink can be reached at [email protected] or on X at @ETNRink. Michael Collins covers the White House and can be reached @mcollinsNEWS.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Behind Shapiro's doomed VP bid: Israel, war in Gaza and other baggage
